#Set up your development environment, i.e. your editor or [[Getting Started/Set up KDE 4 for development#KDevelop|IDE]]

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#Set up your development environment, i.e. your editor or [[Getting_Started/Using_an_IDE_with_KDE4|IDE]]

#Pick something to work on, like some of the things suggested below

#Pick something to work on, like some of the things suggested below

#Start coding and fix the problem!

#Start coding and fix the problem!

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Should you need help, feel free to ask us in the #kontact IRC channel, or mail either [mailto:mcguire@kde.org Thomas McGuire] (the KMail maintainer) or the [mailto:kde-pim@kde.org kde-pim mailing list].

Should you need help, feel free to ask us in the #kontact IRC channel, or mail either [mailto:mcguire@kde.org Thomas McGuire] (the KMail maintainer) or the [mailto:kde-pim@kde.org kde-pim mailing list].

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Use the [http://commitfilter.kde.org KDE commitfilter] to subscribe to kdepim and kdepimlibs commits, you will learn a lot from other's commits.

If you find some information missing, feel free to add it to this page after you learn it.

If you find some information missing, feel free to add it to this page after you learn it.

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Below follows a list of junior jobs. It always includes a rough location where in the KMail sources to start.

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Below follows a list of junior jobs. It always includes a rough location where in the KMail sources to start.

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=== The default column sizes of the message structure viewer are too small ===

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{{Warning|At this point, '''KMail 1 is completely frozen'''. KMail 1 is the version that is shipped with KDE 4.4.x and earlier versions.

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'''Starting point:''' kmmimeparttree.cpp

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Right now, we are working on KMail 2. KMail 2 is the KMail that is based on Akonadi.

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'''Difficulty:''' Easy

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Only bugfixes for KMail 1 are still allowed, but no new features or any refactoring.

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'''Description:''' When starting KMail for the first time (i.e. empty kmailrc configuration file), the column sizes for the message structure viewer are not good. The name column is too small, although it should be the largest. KMail should provide good default column sizes for the default window size.

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A good way to contribute would be to help with KMail 2, see first entry below.

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}}

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<br>

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=== Help making KMail 2 ready ===

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'''Difficulty:''' Easy to hard, depends on what you work on

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'''Description:''' KMail is currently being ported to [http://api.kde.org/kdesupport-api/kdesupport-apidocs/akonadi/html/ Akonadi] and [http://api.kde.org/4.x-api/kdepimlibs-apidocs/kmime/html/index.html KMime]. This work currently takes place in SVN trunk. Once KMail is fully ported, it will be released as KMail 2, probably together with KDE 4.5.

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=== Better handling of empty column titles in the message list ===

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That porting is a huge task, comparable to the KDE3 to KDE4 port of KMail (if not even more work). Therefore, any help with porting is greatly appreciated. There are still many unported places in the code which are commented out, or places with defects, or missing features. You'll know what I mean with this when you start KMail, you'll immediately notice those things. This is where you can help: Many of those are easy to fix and quite suitable for newcomers. (Side note: the current KMail maintainer started by helping in the KDE3 to KDE4 port, having no experience with KMail code before. I think the Akonadi port is a comparable effort, with quite some low-hanging fruit you can start on.)

We are tracking bugs that are the result of the Akonadi port of KMail with the '''akonadi-ports-regression''' keyword. This would be a great place to start: Have a look at the bugs tagged with that keyword and help fixing them. Some of those bugs are huge and difficult tasks, while others are easier. You should probably try starting with the ones that have low priority, those are generally easier.

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You'll find the bug list with [https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=akonadi-ports-regression&resolution=--- this bugzilla query].

'''Description:''' When using the classic theme, you can select additional columns by right-clicking the header. There are many icon-only columns here, like ''Action Item'' or ''Signature''. For those icon columns, the column header text doesn't fit into the width, and this looks bad. Your job would be to add an option to the theme editor like ''Don't display column header text''. This would simply show nothing as the column header, but still show the column names in the context menu. Also, the default themes should be adjusted to use this.

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'''Description:''' The font setting has no effect when using a fixed font, and when using the separate reader window. Your job is to fix the situation.

'''Description:''' Currently, when you use embedded HTML images with KMail, those images are always converted to PNG. This is very undesirable when adding photos as inline images, as those are much bigger as PNG.

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'''Description:''' The font setting has no effect when using a fixed font, and when using the separate reader window. Your job is to fix the situation.

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Have a look a textedit.cpp to see what KMail does: When attaching the image, it loads the image file into a QImage and adds that as a resource of the QTextDocument. It also replaces the file name suffix with ".png".

Later, when sending the message, that QImage is saved into a QByteArray, saving it into "PNG" format.

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<s>'''Starting point:''' kmmainwidget.cpp</s>

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To fix this problem, KMail should not change the file name suffix of the image, and later try to use the suffix as format for saving, falling back to PNG if Qt doesn't support saving into that image format.

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<s>'''Difficulty:''' Easy</s>

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Also, in case of JPEG images, it would be nice to remember the quality as well. QImageReader has to be used to get the quality value.

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<s>'''Description:''' The ''Refresh IMAP Cache'' action in the ''File'' menu is even enabled when there are no IMAP accounts or when no IMAP folder is currently selected. Your job is to fix this be disabling the action when necessary.</s>

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MessageComposer::imageBodyPart() in kdepim/kmail/messagecomposer.cpp also needs to be fixed to work with other image types.

'''Description:''' KMail does many manual calls to readEntry() and writeEntry() for reading and saving configuration. These are error-prone and should be ported to the 'new' KConfigXT system, that is already used in some places (you'll notice the ''GlobalSettings'' class being used a lot).

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'''Description:''' KMail does many manual calls to readEntry() and writeEntry() for reading and saving configuration. These are error-prone and should be ported to the 'new' KConfigXT system, that is already used in some places (you'll notice the ''GlobalSettings'' class being used a lot).

'''Description:''' In the configure dialog in KMail, one has the option to change the font of the messages in the message list. However, this setting is not honored, which is a clear bug.

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'''Difficulty:''' Easy

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The problem is that the fonts can be configured in two places: In the theme dialog and in the normal configure dialog.

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'''Description:''' KMail can show a "tip of the day" on each start, or on demand from the Help menu. Those tips are outdated, and we don't have enough tips.

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You should check that the tips are still correct, for example they could refer to the wrong UI elements.

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In the normal dialog, the option of configuring the date field should probably be dropped, since other fields don't have this special treating. However, the font setting for normal, unread, new, todo and important messages should be honored, at least if the font set in the theme editor is set to "default".

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Also, we need more tips, currently we have only 9 tips. Anything that is helpful to the user, like increasing productivity, and is not obvious can be added there.

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Some ideas for new tips:

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* The folder selection dialog that comes up when pressing ''J'' or ''M''

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* Theme and aggregations can be changed, and that those settings can even be done per folder.

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* The dictionary can be changed in the composer with View->Dictionary. Same for the identity.

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* Transports can be tied to identities in the identities dialog

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* The up and down arrow keys can be used to switch between the fields in the composer

On this page, you'll find small coding jobs for a beginner to work on. All these problems are relatively easy, some of them might even be one-liners. Of course, it is always a good idea to find your own thing to fix, the best motivation is scratching your own itch.

These tasks are intended for beginners with little or no experience programming with KDE. For those beginners, the biggest challenges are not actually the coding problems, but setting the development environment up, finding the correct place of code where the bug happens (in the jungle of all those source files) and interacting with the community, with the final step being sending the patch.

The knowledge prerequisite for those jobs are not that big. You should be familiar in C++, and knowing Qt a bit would help. Knowing kdelibs or KMail internals is not required, that can usually be picked up during coding.

For more general information, visit the following places:

KDE Techbase: Contains a lot of information about developing KDE, in particular a section on how to build KDE from source

Description: KMail is currently being ported to Akonadi and KMime. This work currently takes place in SVN trunk. Once KMail is fully ported, it will be released as KMail 2, probably together with KDE 4.5.

That porting is a huge task, comparable to the KDE3 to KDE4 port of KMail (if not even more work). Therefore, any help with porting is greatly appreciated. There are still many unported places in the code which are commented out, or places with defects, or missing features. You'll know what I mean with this when you start KMail, you'll immediately notice those things. This is where you can help: Many of those are easy to fix and quite suitable for newcomers. (Side note: the current KMail maintainer started by helping in the KDE3 to KDE4 port, having no experience with KMail code before. I think the Akonadi port is a comparable effort, with quite some low-hanging fruit you can start on.)

We are tracking bugs that are the result of the Akonadi port of KMail with the akonadi-ports-regression keyword. This would be a great place to start: Have a look at the bugs tagged with that keyword and help fixing them. Some of those bugs are huge and difficult tasks, while others are easier. You should probably try starting with the ones that have low priority, those are generally easier.
You'll find the bug list with this bugzilla query.

[edit]Bug 156653: Changing the font size has no effect on the separate reader window

Starting point: kmreaderwin.cpp, kmreadermainwin.cpp

Difficulty: Medium

Description: The font setting has no effect when using a fixed font, and when using the separate reader window. Your job is to fix the situation.

Description: Currently, when you use embedded HTML images with KMail, those images are always converted to PNG. This is very undesirable when adding photos as inline images, as those are much bigger as PNG.

Have a look a textedit.cpp to see what KMail does: When attaching the image, it loads the image file into a QImage and adds that as a resource of the QTextDocument. It also replaces the file name suffix with ".png".

Later, when sending the message, that QImage is saved into a QByteArray, saving it into "PNG" format.

To fix this problem, KMail should not change the file name suffix of the image, and later try to use the suffix as format for saving, falling back to PNG if Qt doesn't support saving into that image format.

Also, in case of JPEG images, it would be nice to remember the quality as well. QImageReader has to be used to get the quality value.

MessageComposer::imageBodyPart() in kdepim/kmail/messagecomposer.cpp also needs to be fixed to work with other image types.

Description: KMail does many manual calls to readEntry() and writeEntry() for reading and saving configuration. These are error-prone and should be ported to the 'new' KConfigXT system, that is already used in some places (you'll notice the GlobalSettings class being used a lot).

Description: KMail can show a "tip of the day" on each start, or on demand from the Help menu. Those tips are outdated, and we don't have enough tips.
You should check that the tips are still correct, for example they could refer to the wrong UI elements.

Also, we need more tips, currently we have only 9 tips. Anything that is helpful to the user, like increasing productivity, and is not obvious can be added there.
Some ideas for new tips:

The folder selection dialog that comes up when pressing J or M

Theme and aggregations can be changed, and that those settings can even be done per folder.

The dictionary can be changed in the composer with View->Dictionary. Same for the identity.

Transports can be tied to identities in the identities dialog

The up and down arrow keys can be used to switch between the fields in the composer